Ven. Uduwe Dhammaloka Thera, who was onboard a flight to leave for the UK, was requested to disembark by the Immigration and Emigration Department officials at the Bandaranaike International Airport minutes before the flight took off yesterday.
The Department’s Information Officer and Deputy Commissioner M. L. D. Niroshana said there was an issue regarding the date on the court order temporarily lifting the foreign travel ban on the Ven. Thera.
“Ven Dhammaloka Thera had obtained permission to go abroad from the Colombo Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, but we were not in possession of the said court order when the monk arrived at the BIA.
We communicated this to the court and at the same time allowed the Ven. Thera to proceed.
When we received the court order, we saw the temporary travel ban lift mentioned in the court order was effective only from August 26 to October 12. This could be a typo as well, but we had to offload the Thera and ask him to get the dates corrected,” he explained.
Ven. Dhammaloka Thera has been charged with keeping an elephant calf without a permit at the Alan Mathiniyaramaya Temple in Colombo. He was arrested in 2016 and was granted conditional bail which includes a foreign travel ban.
The Ven. Thera who had to exit the BIA due to the confusion over the court order said he was to leave for the UK to attend a ‘Pinkama’ at the Sri Saddhatissa International Buddhist Centre (Kingsbury Vihara) in London and another ‘pinkama’ in Wales.